an online magazine for poetry & short fiction

will be flying backward this season,
and true wealth is measured in oxen.

The new batch of troops arrived looking tired.
It’s going to be cold.

Spoken words will freeze solid
before they can be heard.

We’re going to have to wait until morning
to hear what they said.

We’ll have a lot to talk about.
Don’t kid yourself.

*****

I wore hot diapers
to the auditorium. I would be reading a poem.

The program said my name was Rainbow.
One time while I was helping fix up

a monastery in Thailand
Colonel Troutman told me a dirty story

about a stallion
wanting more feeling.

He said the best stuff
always happens off camera.

He told me about this famous artist
who made a great sculpture from marble

and everyone said,
You have made a great sculpture!

and the famous artist said,
if you had studied your history

then you would know
that I didn´t make this great sculpture.

I just chipped away the rough edges.
Troutman said, John,

when are you going to stop fighting yourself?
He said they didn`t make me this way.

I can do the things
others cannot.

I can pull a toilet
from a lake.

Put me in coach.

I can throw my knife
into space.

I said my name was Rainbow.
I sang,

A wind for my ship.
The Colonel is dead.

More of Scott Abels’ poems can be found in Lungfull!, Action Yes, No Tell Motel, Word for/Word, Past Simple, Sixth Finch, and many others, which are linked at scottabels.blogspot.com. Lately, he has been alternating years teaching on the coast of Oaxaca, Mexico and Oahu, Hawaii. He is originally from Nebraska.